The Feast of Firstfruits

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. That's where every day you and I, we get together. We have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. In this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. I'm so glad to be with you today. Why don't we have some coffee? We'll pray and we'll get into God's word. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much for this day, and we thank you that you provide everything for us. You are the one who supplies our needs. You are the one who gives us good gifts. Everything that we enjoy in this life is a blessing from your hand. And so, Father, we pray that as we read your word, your spirit would let these words be true in our own lives. In Jesus's name. Amen. Alright, so we are at Leviticus, Leviticus chapter 23, Leviticus chapter 23, and we'll just be reading verses 9 through 14 today.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land which I give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted on your behalf. On the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it. And you shall offer on that day when you wave the sheaf a male lamb of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering to the Lord. Its grain shall be two tents and ephah, a fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the Lord for a sweet aroma, and its drink offering shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hen. You shall eat neither bread nor parched grain nor fresh grain until this day that you have brought an offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
Well, we need to ask ourselves our three normal questions. A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse that summarizes? And C, what are we called to do in response to this? So what is this passage about? Well, the harvest comes. This is right after Passover, a barley harvest is at hand, and they need to make a sacrifice. They need to come to the Lord as a thanksgiving. They're recognizing that it is the God who created heaven and earth. In six days he made the heavens and the earth and all that's in them. In the seventh day he rested, right? That was the first ceremony. The second ceremony was the Passover, right?
They're to remember that the Lord was the one who redeemed them out of Egypt. They were his people, he was their covenant king, and he was the one who was going to provide for them. And so now we're coming to this point that we realize Everything that they had was a blessing from the Lord. All the harvest was from Him. It wasn't some weird mating ritual between Baal and Asherah and all this other stuff, right? The fish harvest wasn't going to come from Dagon, right? The babies didn't come from Molech. None of that crazy pagan Canaanite stuff was going to happen.
They were to recognize that it was God who provided their harvest for them. It was God who cared for them. And so there's this procedure, right, on a Monday, the day after the Sabbath, to bring the Lord a sheaf. And the priest is going to wave it and burn it, and then to bring a lamb, and it's going to be sacrificed, and it's going to be waved and burned, and then they're going to bring a little bit of oil and a little bit of Well, here, no, sorry, not oil, flour plus fine oil. It's just about, oh, three liters worth of this stuff, right, between flour and oil, just under a gallon, right, of this stuff that they're going to offer to the Lord. But they're also going to bring wine, about two pints worth of wine, or one liter worth of wine, and they're going to bring that to the Lord also. But all of this was meant to bring as a sacrifice to say, Lord, you are the wonderful God who brings in the harvest.
So please give us the harvest. Please keep us safe during the harvest. Thank you for all you've done for us. And so this is really like the Israelite Thanksgiving meal was this meal of the feast of first fruits. This is the way in which they were able to recognize, Lord, you're the one who's given to me. I'm going to, I'm the steward of what you give to me, but really it's yours. You are the one who cares for us as our covenant King. And so that's what this passage is about. What's the best verse to summarize this?
Well, I would have verse 10 underline, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land, which I give you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priests. What should we do about this? So, right, what are we called to do as Christians with this Old Testament ceremonial rite? Do we then, you know, I live around a whole bunch of farmers, should they start coming to me with their barley so I can light it on fire when their corn is ready? Should they bring it to me so I can cook it in a pot or something?
No, that's not what any of this is getting at, right? Do we honor the Lord by being thankful to Him for what He has done? Now, some people are going to use this and even televangelists and people who are on TV and radio will try to use this to get your money. I don't think that that's what this is getting at.
I do think it's a good principle that we honor the Lord, right? But I said this to our congregation not too long ago. The only place we have in the New Testament for something like this is saying that the Lord loves a cheerful giver, not out of compulsion or regret. All right, so you give whatever you want to give to the Lord's work.
But I know, and I'm not backtracking here, I'm just saying at principle in my life, if I wait and just give what's left over, I gotta tell you, I'm a greedy person by nature, and I won't give much. I'm saying this as somebody who was a Christian for a long time before I was a pastor. And we recognized early in our marriage, early in, I recognized early in my Christian life that If I waited to give of my excess, it's really easy for me to be greedy and covetous and spend all my money and then not have anything. But if I was content with what the Lord had given me and I was faithful in providing to Him first, I might not have everything that I wanted.
I always had everything I needed. So the point of this isn't to guilt trip people in the new covenant to giving the first fruits and you have to do this stuff, right? But if we're under grace now and not under the law, how much more thankful should we be? He's given us everything. And most of all, he's given us his son, Jesus Christ, and he's given us eternal life. How amazing is God? He's so generous. He's so kind.
And so I hope this morning that you have a heart of generosity and kindness to the Lord. that you lavish the Lord with your praise, that you remember all of his goodness. Go ahead and go. If you have a Psalter, go open your Psalter. If you don't have a Psalter, go open the book of Psalms. Just look up Psalms of thanksgivings and you'll find it all over the place. The Lord is good and he's kind and he's generous.
Praise him for it and live your life in the light of knowing he is our covenant king. He provides for everything we need. And so we can be thankful to him. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for. The gift of life you have given us and every good gift that comes down from you, especially Jesus Christ. And Father, we pray that we would not be those people who would be slow to thanksgiving and praise. but that we would remember how good you have been to us, and that we would love you all of our lives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, may the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace that comes from walking in Jesus Christ. And I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.